Sleepless
by CelestialHeavens1
Summary: Tony wakes up to knocking on his door. Set in early season 7, post Somalia. Actual Tiva! Like not just internalized, suffering feelings. Was intended as a part of the Lies We Tell universe, but works completely on it's own as a one-shot.
1. Chapter 1

It was after two in the morning when a knock on the door woke Tony up from his fitful sleep. His first instinct was to grab his gun from beneath his pillow, despite figuring anyone coming to kill him probably wouldn't knock.

Most of the time, he didn't have nightmares. But then there were bad nights, triggered by something during the day or so. Since returning from Somalia, everything seemed to trigger something. Despite the fact that he most certainly never been captured by giant balloon animals and Simon had never to his knowledge worn clown makeup while he was considered in the service to the KGB, that had been the latest of the dreams. Still, he hadn't woken until the knock on the door, so he felt confident in classifying the night as a "good" night.

Grumbling a little, he got out of the bed and padded through his apartment, keeping his gun on him. He peeked through the door-hole and was surprised to see Ziva leaning against the wall, eyes drooping as she barely kept herself upright. He tucked his gun into the back of his pants, pulling his shirt over it, and hoped she was too tired to notice.

"Hey," Tony said after he opened the door up to her. She glanced up, fighting a yawn. "What's up?"

"Can I stay here tonight?"

He took in her sweatpants and hoodie. Comfort over style. She looked exhausted, like she hadn't really been sleeping. He hadn't given much thought to where she had been staying. He knew she had been staying in a safe house until she found an apartment of her own, but they hadn't really talked since the whole deal with Rivkin.

Still, he pulled the door wide and motioned her inside.

Ziva's eyes scanned the apartment, despite her fatigue. He knew she had never been, not unless she had broken in without his knowledge. Few people had. It was a nice apartment, not entirely unlike the one Navon kept permanently in DC, the one that everyone but everyone seemed to use as a safe house.

"It is nice."

He laughed slightly, almost awkwardly, not entirely sure what she wanted with him. Since they had rescued her, Ziva had avoided anything that bordered on real conversation with him. She had kept her distance and it hurt so bad. He didn't want her thinking she could just waltz in in the middle of the night and use him for comfort only to go back to how things had been. The betrayed anger he had seen in her eyes in Israel still smarted and the memory of her pulling a gun on him twice in less than forty-eight hours was still too fresh, even after all these months. Even after he thought she had died.

"I can stay on the couch, if you are uncomfortable."

Tony scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. You can take the bed. You look like you need the sleep."

An almost smile danced on Ziva's lips. "We could both stay in the bed. It would not be right for me to throw you out in the middle of the night."

He nearly snorted at the idea. They both wouldn't fit in his bed. But Ziva didn't know that, he decided as she turned to walk into his bedroom. Under better circumstances, Tony would have appreciated that sight, but with things between them being so up in the air it only served to make him anxious. He closed his eyes for a moment, forcing a breath. He slipped the gun into the box on the shelf while she was distracted and locked the door again.

Ziva had bundled herself beneath the covers. She had shed only her shoes and had curled tightly into his bed. Despite the bed only being a twin, she looked tiny in it. He'd tell her she looked adorable if he was confident she wouldn't kill him for the comment. He had dreamed about her being in his bed so many times. Even with things being what they were, the reality was so much better.

"Are you going to stand and scare all night?"

"Stare," he corrected without thinking. "You know, we're both not going to fit in there?"

Ziva frowned slightly as if the thought hadn't occurred to her. Tony sighed and moved closer, sitting on the side closest to the table. She turned to face him.

"We should talk. I know it is late and you are probably tired and I probably woke you-"

"Ziva," he cut her off and she looked at him.

"I am sorry. For everything. I was wrong to jump to conclusions about what happened. I know you were trying to protect me. So I am sorry." Her hand reached out, almost icy as she laid it against his cheek. "I should have listened to you. I should not have doubted your instincts about Michael and I should not have let my emotions cloud my judgement."

"It hurt that you were more will to trust him than me, that you were so quick and willing to think the worst of me. Like all this time we've worked together didn't matter."

"It does matter," she declared a bit too loudly, panic clear in her eyes. "I know you will always have my six. I knew you had it then. I just did not want to believe that Michael betrayed me or that he was just using me. But my father admitted as much. I was nothing more than a mission to Michael. I was stupid."

Tony reached down, taking her hand in his and warming it up. There were tears in Ziva's eyes, but he wasn't entirely sure what to say. He hadn't planned on having this conversation at two thirty in the morning. He kind of figured they'd both ignore the issue until things got to some resemblance of normal.

"You scare me. I feel things I do not know how to describe what I am with you. I care about you very much. I missed you the most this summer. Even when I was angry, there were so many times I wanted to turn to you and tell you something or point something out because I knew you would like it and I could not. I have never felt more alone then I had in the last couple of months."

There were tears streaming down her cheeks. Tony reached out and brush a few away. Ziva shuttered under his hand.

"And then you were there in Somalia and I thought I was hallucinating you being there. But you were actually there and that terrified me. Why did you come after me? Why did you still care? I was an absolute bitch to you and you came for me when my own father left me to die."

Tony kept his hand where it was, stroking her cheek to keep contact with her. He wasn't sure what possessed him to answer her the way he did. Perhaps it was being woken up in the middle of the night, perhaps it was the way she was looking at him. "I would think that would've been obvious, Zi. I love you."

She turned and pressed her lips against the palm of his hand. Not quite a proper kiss, but neither of them were in the right frame of mind for that. She pulled back, but stayed close, snuggled into his side.

"You are my best friend, Tony. I do not know how to live without you anymore."

Friend zoned, he thought more than a bit glumly. It figured that he finally worked up the nerve, most of it definitely coming from a lack of sleep, to tell Ziva how he felt about her and she tells him he's her friend. That was probably why he answered as bitterly as he did.

"You did it for months."

"That was not living. That was surviving and I did a poor job of it. I need you." Her eyes drooped, too heavy to stay opened any longer. Tony leaned down and kissed her head. Ziva smiled. "Thank you for not giving up on me."

"I didn't go to Somalia to rescue you, Ziva."

"I know. I was not referring to Somalia." She snuggled closer. "Stay?"

"Only if you let me in."

She nodded solemnly, shifting so he had enough room to climb in. The mattress was tiny and briefly, Tony wondered if this was going to be a thing. If it was, he would consider buying something a little larger, if only so he didn't have to suffer the couch.

"Good night, _yakiri,"_ she whispered against his chest, her words muffled as she clung to him. Still, the last word made him smile.

"Good night, Zi," he whispered into her hair.

* * *

Yakiri (יקירי) - dear, my dear one, darling


	2. Chapter 2

Living with Ziva on a day to day basis was weird. For one, she cooked constantly. His refrigerator went from the typical dorm room contents - a case of beer, a bottle of wine, and whatever half-eaten leftovers he had the night before - to looking like Aunt Stella's once had. She made breakfast for them and dinner if they returned early enough. She made desserts and snacks and he didn't know how he hadn't put on ten pounds from her living there.

Another thing she did was get up at five every morning to run. She'd come home and shower before breakfast. Eventually, he started getting up and running with her because his twin-sized bed was lonely without her in it.

His clothes had migrated into one closet and her's into the other. She had photos she had thrown on his bookcase of her and her siblings and he fought himself to keep from begrudging her that picture. It was hard to see Ari looking so innocent knowing what he became. But then again, he had just been another pawn in Eli David's games.

"You have nothing here," she complained one Sunday afternoon when they didn't have a case. "If you were to move out, no one would even know."

"Well, they would if I took the rug. And I'd be taking the piano," he answered without thinking about it, sipping at the coffee he had made when she couldn't figure out how to work his pot, scrolling through his phone reading the news.

"We should move them. It would open the room up more if we did."

"No."

"But why not?" she whined, stalking through the kitchen like it was her apartment and not his first. When he didn't move, she stormed from the room. It was several minutes later when he heard the question that snapped him out of his daze. "Is that blood?"

Thinking she had found another body in his living room, he darted out to find Ziva staring at the spot that was no longer covered by the rug. She looked up at him like he had sprouted a second head.

"Why is there blood on your floor?"

"Gibbs couldn't get it out and couldn't find enough wood to match the bedroom. At least the skeleton's out from under the floorboards."

"I cannot tell if you are jacking or not."

"Joking, Ziva," he corrected with a roll of his eyes, "And unfortunately no. There was a triple homicide in the living room and a body buried in the bedroom. Compliments of the guy who lived here before me."

"That is not funny. Stop playing with me."

Tony shrugged. "Call Gibbs if you don't believe me, or Ducky." He tossed her his phone, which she deftly caught. "McGee wasn't around back then. It was when I first started at NCIS. I still needed an apartment cause I was driving in from Baltimore. When we came to investigate, Gibbs joked that this one was empty now, since the guy was in jail."

"Gibbs joked?"

"He acts all serious for you and McGee."

"That is an act?" She stared at the phone as if it might hold some answers now that Tony had thrown her world upside down.

"Don't tell McGee." He sat down at the piano bench, facing out towards her. "Why do you think the rest of us tolerated him for as long as we did before you guys all joined the team? Frankly, I'm surprised his straight man routine has lasted this long. Where'd you think I learned the glue on the keyboard thing?"

"Gibbs used to glue your fingers to the keyboard?"

Tony chuckled. "Yeah, and bricks in my backpack, unplugging my computer randomly, letting the air out of my tires. Gibbs was a menace! I'm simply doing my duty to McGee as my probie by making sure he has the same joys and life experiences."

"I still cannot see it. Not Gibbs." Tony shrugged and Ziva sat on the couch. "So why does he never call you 'probie' if you were his? Mike Franks still calls Gibbs 'probie' and you call McGee, so it has nothing to do with time spent as an agent."

"Cause I wasn't actually Gibbs' probie. These were back in the days of Stan Burley. He was my TO until he transferred. Gibbs was just Stan's troublemaking partner, though he'd probably slap me for saying so."

Ziva bit her lip and it looked like she was fighting a grin. "It is hard to imagine."

"Not really. I'm not the only one putting glue on McProbie's keyboard."

At that, she did laugh.

* * *

Night found them curled up in their usual position in the too small bed. Ziva laid mostly on his chest, freezing despite the fact that she gave off heat like a radiator. She had the covers bundled over around her.

"Tony," she whispered when his eyes were closed and he was drifting off to sleep.

"Hmm?"

"Why do you have a tiny bed?"

"It's a twin-sized bed." She poked him in the stomach and he grunted. "I don't invite women home."

It was just good operational security. Besides, his apartment was his sanctuary. He didn't invite coworkers there. Gibbs and Ducky had only been for that case and the clean up after, but it hadn't really been his yet. Ziva was the first woman he was romantically interested in and first coworker who had been in his apartment. He also hadn't expected her to stay as long as she had.

"You should get a bigger bed." Her fingers tightened in his shirt. "This room is big enough for it. We would be more comfortable, no?"

 _We,_ she had said and Tony felt a tingle run through him. She planned on staying here.

"So if I get a bigger bed, does that mean you're staying?"

"I… yes. If you want me to, that is." For the first time since he had met her, Ziva actually sounded unsure. Her voice shook and the hand that was in his shirt was holding on as if she let go, he'd disappear.

"I'd like that."


End file.
